It is easier to preach at a funeral than at a wedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is the first thing a preacher has to accomplish when he preaches ?
He must get the attention of the people in front of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a funeral there is less distraction and more readiness to listen for comfort and direction, because of the devastating loss and uncertain future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A wedding is loaded with nothing but distractions—certainty, confidence, elation, anticipation of positive future starting in a couple hours, to say nothing of fashion finery, smiles about the occasion, and justified focus on two people.
Poor preacher—lots of luck getting attention—usually calls for special techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– – –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now here is a Bible verse the preacher may meditate on in preparing a wedding message, so he has perspective on the occasion.
“Better to go to the house of mourning Than to go to the house of feasting, For that is the end of all men; And the living will take it to heart.”
We must not forget the realities of life and death, just because we’re supposed to be happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Likewise at a funeral, we must not forget the realities of life and death, just because we’re supposed to be sad.
A preacher must use both opportunities, at a funeral and at a wedding, to include the Gospel message, that we all need Jesus—admit we are sinners, accept Jesus’ payment for our sins, and get our names written in heaven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is easier to preach at a funeral than at a wedding. What is the first thing a preacher has to accomplish when he preaches ?He must get the attention of the people in front of him. At a funeral there is less distraction and more readiness to listen for comfort and direction, because of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,3,7,9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-faith_based","category-family","category-inspire_lifter","category-political-cultural","category-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6887"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6888,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6887\/revisions\/6888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}